Press Releases

SACRAMENTO — State Controller Betty T. Yee today updated her Government Compensation in California website to include 2015 self-reported data for special districts.  The data covers 151,796 positions and a total of nearly $7.77 billion in wages and approximately $2.56 billion in retirement and health care costs for 2,981 special districts.

Users of the site can:

• View compensation levels on maps and search for compensation by region;
• Narrow results by name of entity or by job title;
• Build charts; and
• Export custom reports or raw data.

Special districts are government entities created by a local community to meet a specific need.  The new data show that fire protection districts had nine of the 10 highest average salaries in 2015.  The top three were the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, and the Chino Valley Independent Fire District.

The three special districts with the biggest overall payrolls were the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, and Palomar Health District.

The three entities with the highest average retirement and health care costs were the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District, and the Novato Fire Protection District.

Overall, the new data show the number of special district employees went up almost 7.3 percent, while average wages increased by 2.2 percent in 2015.  Total retirement and health costs went up by almost 8 percent.  The “total retirement and health cost” line sometimes includes payments toward the net pension liabilities of the retirement plan.

In all, 36 special districts failed to file the required reports, and another eight provided non-compliant reports, meaning they were incomplete, in the wrong format, or received after the deadline and still under review.

Since the government compensation website was launched in 2010, it has registered nearly nine million page views. The site now contains information on more than two million jobs in California, as reported by each government entity.

As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Yee is responsible for accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources. The Controller also safeguards many types of property until claimed by the rightful owners, and has independent auditing authority over government agencies that spend state funds. She is a member of numerous financing authorities, and fiscal and financial oversight entities including the Franchise Tax Board. She also serves on the boards for the nation's two largest public pension funds. Elected in 2014, Controller Yee is the tenth woman elected to a statewide office in California’s history. Follow the Controller on Twitter at @CAController and on Facebook at California State Controller’s Office.

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